By:- Kiran Patil

Game A conflict in interest among n individuals or groups (players). There exists a set of rules that define the terms of exchange of information and pieces, the conditions under which the game begins, and the possible legal exchanges in particular conditions. The entirety of the game is defined by all the moves to that point, leading to an outcome. Move The way in which the game progresses between states through exchange of information and pieces. Moves are defined by the rules of the game and can be made in either alternating fashion, occur simultaneously for all players, or continuously for a single player until he reaches a certain state or declines to move further. Moves may be choice or by chance. For example, choosing a card from a deck or rolling a die is a chance move with known probabilities. On the other hand, asking for cards in blackjack is a choice move.

Information A state of perfect information is when all moves are known to all players in a game. Games without chance elements like chess are games of perfect information, while games with chance involved like blackjack are games of imperfect information.

Strategy A strategy is the set of best choices for a player for an entire game. It is an overlying plan that cannot be upset by occurrences in the game itself.

Payoff The payoff or outcome is the state of the game at it's conclusion. In games such as chess, payoff is defined as win or a loss. In other situations the payoff may be material (i.e. money) or a ranking as in a game with many players.

Extensive and Normal Form Games can be characterized as extensive or normal. A in extensive form game is characterized by a rules that dictate all possible moves in a state. It may indicate which player can move at which times, the payoffs of each chance determination, and the conditions of the final payoffs of the game to each player. Each player can be said to have a set of preferred moves based on eventual goals and the attempt to gain a the maximum payoff, and the extensive form of a game lists all such preference patterns for all players. Games involving some level of determination are examples of extensive form games. The normal form of a game is a game where computations can be carried out completely. This stems from the fact that even the simplest extensive form game has an enormous number of strategies, making preference lists are difficult to compute. More complicated games such as chess have more possible strategies that there are molecules in the universe. A normal form game already has a complete list of all possible combinations of strategies and payoffs, thus removing the element of player choices. In short, in a normal form game, the best move is always known.

One-Person Games A one-person games has no real conflict of interest. Only the interest of the player in achieving a particular state of the game exists. Single-person games are not interesting from a game-theory perspective because there is no adversary making conscious choices that the player must deal with. However, they can be interesting from a probabilistic point of view in terms of their internal complexity. Zero-Sum Games In a zero-sum game the total possible payoffs at the end is zero since the amounts won or lost are equal. Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern demonstrated mathematically that n-person non-zero-sum game can be reduced to an n + 1 zero-sum game, and that such n + 1 person games can be generalized from the special case of the two-person zero-sum game. Another important theorem by Von Neumann, the minimax theorem, states certain aspects of the maximal and minimal strategies of are part of all two-person zero-sum games. Thanks to these discovery, such games are a major part of game theory.

Two-Person Games Two-person games are the largest category of familiar games. A more complicated game derived from 2-person games is the nperson game. These games are extensively analyzed by game theorists. However, in extending these theories to n-person games a difficulty arises in predicting the interaction possible among players since opportunities arise for cooperation and collusion.

Though at first glance the idea of game theory sounds trivial, applications of game theory are extensive. Von Neumann and Morgenstern originally applied their models of games to economic analysis. Each factor in the market, such as seasonal preferences, buyer choice, changes in supply and material costs, and other such market factors can be used to describe strategies to maximize the outcome and thus the profit. However, game theory can be also used to simply study economics of the past and interactions of different factors in a matter. It can also be used to investigate matters such as monetary distributions and their effects on other outcomes. Military strategists have turned to game theory to play "war games." Usually, such games are not zero-sum games, for loses to one side are not won by the other, and they have been criticized as potentially dangerous oversimplification of necessarily factors. Economic situations are also more complicated than zero-sum games, but those factors only require readjustments to the strategy over time. Sociologists have taken an interest in game theory, and have developed an entire branch dedicated to group decision making. Immunization procedures and vaccine or other medication tests are analyzed by epidemiologists using game theory.

The properties of n-person non-zero-sum games can be used to study different aspects of social sciences as well. Matters such as distribution of power, interactions between nations, the distribution of classes and their effects of government, and many other matters can be easily investigated by breaking the problem down into smaller games, each of whose outcomes affect the final result of a larger game.

 A couple deciding how to spend the evening Wife would like to go for a movie

Husband would like to go for a cricket match

Both however want to spend the time together Scope for strategic interaction

Husband Movie Wife Movie Cricket 2,1 0,0 Cricket 0,0 1,2